


Houses Built in Years and Miles

by Midnight_Run



Category: Vagrant Story
Genre: Gen, Ivalice (Ivalice Alliance), Post-Vagrant Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28210128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Midnight_Run/pseuds/Midnight_Run
Summary: Ashley Riot was a solitary man and now he's never alone.
Relationships: Sydney Losstarot & Ashley Riot
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Houses Built in Years and Miles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gyromitra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyromitra/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! <3

The world was full of darkness.  
  
A truth Ashley Riot had known this long before the day his feet had been set upon the crumbling path to Leá Monde.

And if the years that had passed him by since that day had taught him nothing else it was that darkness was neither good nor evil, it simply was.

He found it in the most innocuous of places, in the grandest estates and the lowest hovels, in the wilds of the world and the villages he was watching turn slowly into great cities as innovation spurred their growth. No matter where his wanderings took him, there was always darkness at his back and darkness in his path. 

And there was also Sydney.

Some times he was little more than a vague presence, a gray memory from bygone days seen only in shadow or from the corner of his eyes, more felt than seen.

More often he was a weight pressed against his back, a beguiling voice in his ear, guiding him as surely as the darkness that lurked always in the back of his mind, towards their next destination. 

He found he did not mind the company and even, perhaps, missed it when Sydney's presence was little more than an echo, barely more substantial than any other soul trapped in the choices he had made and the choices that had been made for him. 

Even after all these years, he had still never gotten the whole of Sydney's story. Who he had been, how he had come to serve, why he had done the things he had done or even simply why he had chosen to linger so close at hand when he could have just as easily vanished into the dark as all the bearers before him had done.

"You needed me," Sydney had replied simply, shrugging, the one time he'd allowed himself to fall deep enough in his cups to summon the foolhardy courage to ask. "Couldn't very well leave you to wander the world so ill prepared, could I? I would hardly wish my choice to flounder and all my efforts wasted."  
  
 _My_ choice.  
  
He always said those words with such conviction, with such a strange and secret light behind his eyes.  
  
They'd been at an worn-down inn in a failing town perilously close to a wellspring of darkness, one of those rare places where tragedy and the folly of man had combined to create such depths that it would take days, weeks, to stabilize the region, to see the dark made safe to be so close to mortal lives, few though there were still surviving in such places. Sydney was always more certain in places where the dark could more readily strengthen them. They'd been there days and he was weary of the work, but being able to speak and while away the nights with Sydney had made the thankless work of slaying creatures corrupted and beyond saving and cleansing the rot more worthwhile. 

That night, he had sipped his wine and watched the way Sydney's limbs caught the light of the fire, marveling at how solid Sydney appeared to be, how the metal of his long limbs shone bright and how he could not bring himself to look away from the deadly gleam of their edges. It was a beautiful sight to be sure and Sydney seemed to so revel in the warmth of the fire's light that he could not bear to call him away from the hearth. Instead he had simply watched him sit, sprawled across the floor before it and reflected in silence on how the reasons Sydney offered might easily have been quite enough to reason to follow him through those early years he bore the blood sin.  
  
No doubt Sydney was quite right in implying he'd not have lived long if Sydney had not chosen to haunt his steps, to lecture and cajole and tease him through those long days when exhaustion seemed a constant companion and the scars and horrors of Leá Monde were still new. To teach him the tricks and tactics that had kept him alive and free despite the continued pursuit and machinations of Church and State.  
  
He was, however, quite certain that Sydney's reasons made far less sense in this time, decades later, so very, very far from the lands they had once called home.  
  
He could not, however, find it within himself to complain. Sydney's companionship, strange and caustic though it was at times, made the long days of wandering almost... pleasant.  
  
Or perhaps he had simply had too much to drink and everything seemed much more pleasant and all transgresses more forgivable when one was warm and comfortable and had drunk entirely too much truly terrible wine.  
  
Regardless, he had let the silence linger too long and eventually fallen asleep within challenging Sydney's words and the next morning there had been creatures to fight and a balance to be struck and the reason Sydney was there seemed vastly less important than the fact that he was.  
  
Time continued to pass, relentless and unyielding, and he wandered and Sydney wandered with him.

Their current destination was in the far North and, though Snow drifted from the pale sky above, great fluffy tufts of the stuff catching in the thick course hair of his horse's mane and in the folds of his jerkin and occasionally on his face, the chill winter breeze casting showers of cold against his cheeks as they canter down the muddy road into the town commons. 

He could feel the subtle pull of the dark, a series of indecipherable whispers tugging at his awareness like a child begging a parent's gaze; urging him to look, to seek, to find, and so he does.

It takes but a moment for his gaze to settle upon the disturbance that had brought him here.

The memory of a child sitting at the edge of the well at the center of the square, watching him with the dark, fathomless gaze of one long dead. They look hungry, as all those tainted by darkness do, sensing the mark on his back or the power in his blood.

He is weary from days on the road, but from long experience, he knew the dark would not quiet until balance was achieved.

The horse would not go near it, he knew from long experience. Animals could sense the dark far better than humans and shied from it, or at least the more unbridled aspects; Sydney was in this, as in so many things, an exception. Animals adored him and he them and he would not have been surprised to discover that, whatever else he had been in his too short life, Sydney had been the darling of every animal that ever crossed his path.  
  
But this child was not Sydney, so he dismounted and left the horse with the shivering boy who scrambled out of the tavern's stables to take his reins. He pressed too many coins into the boy's hand and heaved his bags over his shoulder before leaving the boy to tend his mount and crossing the square to stand beside the well.

The creature of the well had short, wild hair and bruises on their knees and had not bothered to move from their perch at the edge as they watched him come, their feet dangling bare over the darkness of the well's depths. Their skin was washed out, time having painted it in shades of grey and brown and he could see the gritty stone through the sallow memory of flesh and cloth. He could feel the threads of the child they had once been lingering in the air; the sound of a stone skipping across the still surface of a lake and a smell like honeycomb on a warm spring day which was almost sweet enough to cover the faint whiff of decay that lingered beneath.  
  
The dark stained the creature's fingertips like spilled ink.  
  
It had brought harm to someone, another child, perhaps, or a feeble adult. Spirits were lonely creatures by nature and none so much so as children. Children so rarely understood how they had come to be or why they'd been left to wander and spite came easier to the spirits of children than it did to others. They were so much more likely to reach for that which they longed to be and lash out when they could not step back into the life and warmth they'd left behind.  
  
He leaned in against the edge of the well, flicking his eyes to the creature who had once been a child and then down into the dark as he used the rope that dangled there to haul a bucket from the depths. He did not have to glance round to determine that there was no one around to hear him speak, the weather and the coming night did their work well.

”There is nothing for you here,” he murmured, keeping his focus on the rope and the weight he could feel sloshing about at its end. “It is past time for you to move along, little one."

For a moment, the creature stared at him with hungry, defiant eyes, lip jutting out in a pout as if they could will themselves to stay with stubbornness alone. And, perhaps, if he had been less practiced in his craft or the child steeped more completely in darkness, that might have been enough to give him challenge, to make him consider whether he might need summon his magics or draw his sword, but he was not and they were not and might have beens mattered very little in the face of what was.

The dark rose around him, an eager wind stirring his hair, brushing warmth across the exposed flesh of his arms as his muscles flexed as he continued to haul the bucket up with steady hands. Beside him, the child opened their mouth as if to protest, to scream, but no sound came and in the next moment they were gone, crumbling into so much blackened dust, a tidy little pile to be blown away by the breeze, scattered to mix in with the mud and snow, bringing a small piece of the world back into balance once more.  
  
He hauled the bucket up out of the well at last, setting it on the edge and breathing a quiet sigh of relief. There was a thin layer of crumbling ice floating at the top of the water he hauled up from the well, a testament to the chill of the season. He broke it easily with a wiggle of the ladle that hung inside the bucket before lifting the ladle and drinking deeply.   
  
Exhaustion was beginning to drag at his edges by the time he made his way back to the inn, paid for his board and a hearty meal and made his way up to his rented room. It was a small, but neat and tidy with a bed layered with blankets to stave off the winter chill, so he had no complaints.

"No fruit?" A lilting voice inquired and if it hadn't been for all the years he'd had to accustom himself to the unexpected appearances of his companion, he might well have dropped his tray. As it was, he bent to place it on the bed before turning to drop his bags in the corner.   
  
"I'm afraid not. I've some dried apples in my bag if you'd like," he offered, stooping to dig a small pouch from the pocket he kept reserved for rations and lobbed it to Sydney without bothering to wait for a reply. In all their time together, Sydney had never once turned down an offer of fruit, dried or no. Being of darkness and shadows though he was, there were some hungers that were never truly sated and some offerings that were always appreciated.  
  
His claws closed around the sack with surprising grace, catching it with ease, and tugging the bag open with careful practiced moves, the faded sepia tones darkening and sharpening as he watched and Sydney offered him a look that wasn't quite a smile, but was close enough to satisfy.

He had seen Sydney take many shapes since the night he had been consumed by the darkness, most significantly less familiar than the aspect he currently wore. He’d seen him as man and young man and boy, but he still preferred him like this. Preferred the man, with all his sharp edges both real and imagined, brittle and strange. Preferred him as he had been during those few days they had spent together making their way from Leá Monde before he had fulfilled his longstanding obligation and become one with the dark he’d once served.

No matter how similar this aspect was to the man he had been, he knew better than to trust wholly in appearances.

The dark could mimic most anything given a desire upon which to feast and he would be a fool not to suspect that it was not him.

Not truly.

After all, he knew better than any man alive that Sydney Losstarot was dead and gone and what lingered in the dark was only a memory.  
  
It was, however, a very convincing facsimile if that's all it was.

He had been uncommonly graceful, even in life, folding his sharp edges so neatly he seemed to collapse to the floor all at once in once smooth flowing motion. It had been lovely to behold even when he thought Sydney his enemy and even now after watching him for the span of countless years he found himself stopping to gaze at him as he moved.

He was not certain what he believed. 

Still... he liked the company.  
  
He liked _his_ company.

Whatever form it took.  
  
Perhaps one day, when his time was done, he would meet him again and he would finally have the chance to know him truly.

Sydney raised an imperious eyebrow once he’d settled, bladed fingers reaching with practiced ease to spear a piece of cheese from the platter of food Ashley had left on the bed, “You’ll catch a chill if you stand there staring all night.”

"Wouldn't that be a sight to behold," he'd answered gamely, shaking off the dark turn of his thoughts, hesitating no further before stripping his wet clothes from his body and laying them out in front of the fire to dry. “Immortal felled by a seasonal chill.”

The darkness that walked like a man snorted, "I should like to think you’re a mite bit hardier than all that.”  
  
"I suppose I might be,” he chuckled, pulling on a fresh shirt and trousers before settling down beside Sydney on the floor to eat his meal.


End file.
